Sir Creighton took a step towards the door.
Mr. West did not move. His jaw had fallen. He had grasped the back of a chair.
The gong sounded for luncheon filling up the long pause with its hum.
“For God’s sake—for God’s sake,” whispered the Cabinet Minister.
“I tell you the truth, West,” said Sir Creighton. “The son of Richard Gaintree, the man who was in your father’s works with myself and with you—the man who in that strange way when we thought he was at the point of death confessed to the crime which you committed and so saved you—the man whom you saw go cheerfully to prison, without speaking a word to save him—that man is the father of Pierce Winwood as certain as we stand here.”
Mr. West gazed at Sir Creighton Severn for some minutes, and then with an articulation that was half a cry and half a groan, dropped into the chair in front of him, and bowed his head down to his hands on the table.
For a long time his visitor did not speak—did not stir. At last he went to him and laid his hand on his shoulder.
“‘God moves in a mysterious way,’—you remember that hymn at the Chapel in the old days, Julian?” he said in a low voice. “Though we have drifted away from the chapel, we can still recognise the truth of that line. I know that for years you have thought and thought if it might be possible for you to redeem that one foolish act of your life—to redeem your act of cowardice in sending that man to suffer in your place. Well, now, by the mysterious working of Providence, the chance is offered to you.”
“And I will accept it—I will accept it as I did the offer of Richard Gaintree,” cried West, clutching at his friend’s arm. “Thank God I can do it—I can do it. But he need not know—the son need not know—you say he does not know?”
“He knows the story—the bare story, but his father hid the names from him. He need never know more than he does now.”